Heading off to New Hampshuh…

This week’s blog post is early and short because I’m going off this weekend to meet up with an old friend who lives in Manchester. We’re going to stay in Peterborough, the town I (very loosely) based Lawson on. I haven’t seen my friend in a year and a half and instead of being together with our families, we’ll be on our own, just the way we were when we met almost twenty years ago.

Back then, we were each teaching for the first time — on either side of a completely ineffective temporary room barrier in the basement of Coe-Brown Northwood Academy. I had the tenth grade and she had the eleventh grade. We could each hear everything that was said in the other room, so we couldn’t help but get to know each other well.

Today she’s a high school guidance counselor. I left New Hampshire for New York (for a guy, though not the one I married) and ended up in educational publishing and advertising for many years before making my way back to teaching, sort of (I’m an adjunct).

Despite living quite some distance apart, my friend and I have gotten together almost every summer of our lives ever since, usually at her family’s summer home in Maine. One summer I took off to go to Scotland with my Scottish father and my Scottish-Puerto Rican son. She took this one off to cope with her mother, who died this fall.

It will be nice to catch up, because although we are very good friends, there’s very little conversation between our yearly meet-ups. We just save it all up for when we get together.

I can’t wait! We plan to eat well, hang out at the Toadstool Bookshop (which I already know is a lot bigger than it was when I lived there), check out the sights, and — if I know us — try to find at least one thrift store. Who knows, we might even get a meal at the diner, if we can get in. (I’m sure the good people of Lawson would approve.)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Peterboro_Diner,_Peterborough_NH.jpg(Photo from wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons)

 

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